17 replies to this topic

[Nowe]

I didn't want to bring worry to the community until I absolutely had to. I've refrained from posting this to the general community out of fear, doubt, and well...shame I suppose. I've been paying for our hosting for the last (nearly) two years. Well, money has kind of fled my bank account, and I can't even afford gas for the week, let alone our hosting for the fast approaching March. I wish I didn't have to say this now, but I'm looking everywhere I can for a hosting company that will support us until I can get enough for the wonderful Hostgator hosting again. So far, all of the Free Hosts that I have found or been lead to have been inadequate for the needs of the Frontier. Let me put it this way:

We use at least 4, but never more than 6 gigabytes of bandwidth a month. We use up less than 150MB of space for IPB (which is all we need, really). The problem with most hosts is that they give too few GB of bandwidth, or they give enough bandwidth but not enough space (50~100mb of space is what most free hosts offer), or they don't allow IPB to run on their free hosting. At this point, I'm none to sure about the future of the Frontier. At this point, I'm seeking recommendations from everyone here as to our future. Please be thoughtful when posting here, it's a matter of the Frontier's life and death.

My most humblest apologies,
Nowe

[Lyon]

Which of the IPB hosting packages are you using? I would assume that the Basic 10 would be enough to serve our needs, since we often have more members online than the smallest possible hosting plan would allow. The unfortunate part about this being a forum composed generally of mid to upper teens means that most of us don't have credit cards as an option to donate, were we inclined to share out our information online. If that wasn't the case I would say that donations are the best possible solution to this, but as it is, I don't know.

[MirkwoodArcher]

Wow, Nowe, that's a tough break.  I wish I had a lot of ideas for you, but the only thing that seems to be a possible course of action would be what Lyon suggested, to get donations.  The only downside to that plan is that I can guarantee that everyone here under 18 doesn't have a credit card...how much money is needed?

Will RPGF remain intact even if the hosting is shut down?  I'm assuming you can make a backup within the next few days?

A possible solution would be to get a smaller hosting for the time being, and only take RP's that are fully active right now.  That would save a lot of archive space and extra space that just isn't being used.  If some members are willing to sacrifice their RP's that aren't as active for the moment so that we still have a portion of RPGF, maybe that would be workable?  As for members, they would just have to re-register on RPGF, so that way you could have a list of the completely active members, also a space saver idea.

[Nowe]

Well, we are saved for a month thanks to a generous donor, I'll let them come forward should they choose (Don't bother coming forward if you are not he.) The fact that we are currently not using IPS as our host (No, we are not even on their basic 10, I own a full blown license, and we are hosted with http://hostgator.com), means that I have the mobility to go to just about any webhost that can run PHP.

My current options are as follows, for the months after March:

1) Get Google Adwords.
As much as I detest having ads on a site that is meant to be 'fun', at this point I don't see much of an alternative to bringing in as much revenue to keep the site alive. Along with this, option 2 is pretty good along with this. While I'm none-to-certain how well this might actually work (as in you guys might have to click on a few ads [And actually let them load through your ad-blockers, yes I know, scary thought, but that's just the way it is atm.]).

2) Change Hosting
GoDaddy (who, consequentially, we have our domain through), has rather cheap hosting for websites. They offer 10GB of space and unlimited bandwidth. As far as I'm aware, the only database restriction they have is at 1 Gig, no bigger. Our current database load is nowhere even close (We use 8~9Mb compressed in a .gzip, so its probably not even over 15Mb at this point). This, paired with Adwords might be enough to save the Frontier, but will require everyone's cooperation.

3) Plead for Donations
Yes, as much as I hate to beg, grovel, whatever you call it, Donations definitely help. Even if it was just $1 from every active member (heck, $5), that would mean we could host the Frontier on the GoDaddy host for 3 months at a time. I realize most people here don't even have credit-cards, but anything helps at this point.

I think that combined, these three options might possibly be enough to save the Frontier. I know me rambling on like this probably sounds like something straight out of NPR or APM, asking for money and telling you the benefits, but really that's what it comes down to. After all, we don't get any government subsidies for hosting, so we're pretty much on our own. But, I think I shall start implementing ads today or tomorrow, depending. I'll ask you all now to add http://rpgfrontier.net to your ad-blocker whitelists (allow ads to be displayed across the domain).

So, as it stands now, the tl;dr version:

Running out of money.
1) Adwords
2) New Hosting
3) Donations

All three have to work together to make RPGF stay online.

~Nowe

[Lyon]

I have no objection to having advertisements on the site. Most of the forums that I'm on have advertisements, and they don't generally interfere with the site experience. To tell the truth, I've gotten used to ignoring them there, and I can get used to ignoring them here, as well. As for the hosting, I have no educated preference here. I trust that you know what you're doing.

[John Archer]

Like I said in the MSN convo ads are fine as long as we use IGN as an example of what not to do.  Cheaper host, sounds good as long as we can keep the site as is.  Can't hurt to throw a donate button up front.

[illuminaughti]

let's have a bake sale!

[MirkwoodArcher]

Bake sales seem to be the solution to everything, lol.  Well, I wish I had more to offer in solutions or advice for RPGF, but I'm no expert.

[Elvenlord]

Just how much money do we need? I could put some up if needed and not too much. Feel free to pm if you don't want to discuss it here.

Also, I have no problem with ads, and a I don't see any reason not to move to cheaper hosting.

Edited by Elvenlord, 24 February 2011 - 02:53 PM.

[illuminaughti]

yeah, how much are we talking about? cause, I could help too.

[Nowe]

Well, once we move to the new host, it should be $15 for 3 months of hosting. Still, with me out of work (and literally $0.70 in my bank account), I can't even produce $5 in 3 months. So, maybe with ads (there are issues here as well) and donations, we might be able to hold out indefinitely.

Now, the problems with the ads is that Google will only pay out once the account has reached over $100. It pays it out the month after the account reaches $100. So, I don't know if we'll hit $100 in a three month window. So, like I said, it really just all depends.

[Lyon]

Would us clicking some of the less useless links help the ads make more for us?

[Maikuolan]

Oh Jeebus. I had no idea that RPG-F was sitting on such a knife's edge financially. :-/


I just read this thread for the first time right now, as I'm posting; This is definitely concerning news.

Nowe; Do you have a PayPal account? I'd be happy to send some dollars your way if it'd help. This is to keep RPG-F alive, so there's no shame in asking for help here.

As for using Google Adwords.. They don't particularly bother me much, and I won't have any objection to RPG-F employing them for the extra revenue - My biggest problem with Adwords, however, and the main reason why I don't bother using it at all for anything that I'm hosting, is that I've used them in the past, and past experiences have shown me that they simply don't tend to generate all that much revenue unless you're actually running a site with thousands of members that are active on a daily basis.

Back when DC-6 Dynamic Creations (an online arts business that a friend and I operated for about a year and a half) was online, we had Google Adwords employed as a means to generate extra revenue, right from the start - From a userbase of about ~75 members (most joined early on and things slowed down), with a regular activity rate (over the whole period of being online) of about 10-15 members online per day, over that year and a half, we earned a total of $0.17c - Period.

Ofcourse, perhaps this simply meant that our members all had adblockers, were ignoring the ads, not clicking on them and etc - But we didn't earn enough for us to really consider it worthwhile. I've never used it since.

Probably not the same experience for everyone, but that was the experience for me.

But anyhow, back to the subject at hand.

One way or another, if we work together, we can keep this place online. Both myself and others here and clearly happy to donate, so just give us to word.

[Kamikaze_X]

If I had a credit card or PayPal account, I would most definitely help with donations.. I love this site as much as my own, or the others I am on. This being said, I would hate to see RPGF fall.

As for ads and such, I own a Mac so they don't bother me. Hell, I will continue to click on them if it can produce even the slightest revenue for this site. And switching to another host, in our current condition, seems to be the most prudent course of action.

[Nowe]

Well, the ad placement was completed today. I hope you all don't mind where they've been placed, it seemed to be the most logical placements of the advertisements on the site, if you have any issues or want anything moved, please let me know. Currently they're showing in:

-Globally in the Header
-In topic below the first post and in the Footer.

So yes, essentially they'll be shown twice on every page (Besides the board index, shown once). I've tried to get them to fit with the default Final Frontier theme, because they don't allow transparencies to be used for the background or anything like that. We'll see what we can do with the amount of revenue generated from this. I'll be implementing a Paypal Donate button as well somewhere.

Edit:

I've added the paypal donate button to the bottom of the forum Global Footers (The topic-footer ad code overrides this for topics). You can also donate directly through This Link. You guys are amazing, always supportive. I and the rest of the staff team here really appreciate everything you guys are helping with.

[Vithar Megilaglar]

Quote

I and the rest of the staff team here really appreciate everything you guys are helping with.

I think it's safe to say that everyone appreciates everything that everyone's done.

[Nowe]

I suppose that's true Vith, very true indeed. So, thank you everyone for your continuing support.

[Nowe]

Update:

Alright, ladies and gents. Here's how it's going to go down:

1) I've already talked with GoDaddy support, they assured me of the few things I was cautious about, so I think it's safe to say they're an alright choice for at least three months.

2) I have also applied for work at...lets just say several local stores in the area, hopefully something will pull through to where I can get and manage a whole $15 for three months. It still doesn't sit well with me being out of work.

3) I will be leaving for a geological field camp friday early morning. I will not be online until the following saturday afternoon/sunday, depending on when we get back.